Let me ask you something right here out of the gate for movie Monday. When was the last time a monster in a movie made you feel more human? Because that's what our focus today really did in the shape of water. It was Doug Jones who did that. Doug freaking Jones.

How about that? Let's just call him Doug freaking Jones. We've seen monsters our whole lives in cinema. Rubber suits, prosthetics, CGI chaos, but Doug Jones doesn't just wear a costume. He inhabits it.

The amphibian man in the shape of water is silent. No monologues, no witty one-liners, just breath movement, his eyes. Like it's crazy the performance that he put in and built a full emotional arc without dialogue. Just facial freedom. That's what he was using.

What did you think about that? Because that in itself is already a hard feat to do. Yeah, this is I mean Doug Jones is known for his acting with his body. That's what he's hired and cast for the roles that he plays probably most because he doesn't have to speak but his body pans labyrinth, hocus pocus, these other things that he's played. I think it's very clear that he's chosen because he can exhibit so much with just body language and in researching this role looking at how he was going to show movements and emotion without words.

He studied kind of movements of dogs. So this goes back to our good boy. Who deserves the Awards for best acting if a dog is just being a dog just being what dogs do and then there's Doug Jones who is using those same tilts of the head movements to look like he's listening or that he's empathetic or that he's curious or what he's playing out there. So I think that's really worth diving into. Yeah, I'm excited.

But you named off some of the stuff he's been in and that's crazy because Doug Jones to me is one of those performers who's been in everything but somehow still feels like a secret. But it's because he's behind these elaborate costumes and stuff. Hellboy, pans labyrinth, hocus pocus, Saru in Star Trek Discovery. A lot of people don't even realize that was him. The man is basically, I bet, he's Hollywood's patron saint of elegant weirdness.

But you know in, what a great career to have if you really think about it. In the shape of water he did something different. He made vulnerability look powerful and this is crazy because to be honest this is a monster that could have been framed as a threat. Instead he's the most emotionally intelligent person in the room. That's Doug Jones.

That's the one he portrayed. That's what he's putting across for the people, you know, that are watching this. We're gonna go on and on about how great Doug Jones is. Yeah, well I have said in previous episodes, if any of you Freqs out there, remember I talked about the most romantic thing my husband did for me recently was start reading my favorite Romantic novel. And in the world of Romantic novels you kind of extend your attraction to certain characters to things that you maybe normally wouldn't be attracted to in real life.

I think this movie does that because I think the first time I watched it, this was years ago, probably when it first came out, I was a little bit uncomfortable with like, well is this okay to have a relationship with a human and this creature? I mean obviously very attractive for many reasons, but but you know you kind of get that feeling of like are we just suspending that thing in our head that says maybe this isn't okay? And in Romantic, you do that a lot. So now watching it after after that I'm all in. I'm like this is one of the most beautiful romance love stories I think that cinema has ever done and the fact that she's seeking out someone who is like you said, it's more about the emotional intelligence connection that they have that clearly in this movie is showing doesn't exist as well in the real world.

Maybe she just hasn't found the guy who measures up in that capacity. I like that. You know what I'm saying. I get what you're saying there. I think maybe Sally Hawkins played Alyssa.

Maybe the fact that Doug Jones is the creature in amphibian man. Maybe the fact that he did not talk was what was so attractive. I think everybody wants the male side to shut up. So maybe that's what it was. Well both of them were obviously, you know, she's mute in the movie.

She communicates with sign not deaf but mute and I think that plays so well in this movie that the two of them the ones the two who can't talk communicate the best. Yeah If you're really paying attention to the scenes everyone's interrupting each other. I mean Octavia Spencer playing Zelda is one of my favorite characters in this movie. She never stops talking. She rarely even stops to like check in with her, you know in the beginning of the movie.

Obviously, she's a good friend. She does better at that as the movie goes on but but she is a great character to highlight what I was saying in that she's constantly complaining about her husband. And you notice how she's always like he's in a mood today. You know, I gotta get home to my husband and you know all men they don't know what they're doing. They can't trust short men.

I love that scene where she's like can't trust a short man. And then you know in the end her husband shows in the scene that they actually have with him in it how useless he is. How absolutely like why is she still with this guy? She must just be with this guy because she has to be. I know in that day and age and even in today's day and age like you want to be with a partner who cares about you who adores you.

And that's what these romantic novel characters like the the aqua man or amphibian man. Amphibian man, yeah. Amphibian man and you know, he exhibits that that role for women. That's like what would it be like to be truly seen? Truly heard and truly adored.

Truly. Truly. We we had the pleasure of speaking to Doug Jones at FanX 2025. And before we roll that interview, I want you to listen for something. Not just what he says about anything, but how intentional he is about movement, stillness, breath.

He is one of the kindest individuals that we ever ran across too. And we got to do this with Promise to Live, the suicide prevention organization called 988 if you need help now. But let's go check out Doug Jones's interview right here. All right, we're here with the one and only Doug Jones. Actually, there's quite a few Doug Jones's out there.

No, no, no, no, no. But you're the main one. One and only. Okay, okay. I'll be the actor one.

Okay, okay. Now, now we can sit here and name off all these roles that you've been a part of. And my favorite is Saru. I love Saru. From what show?

Star Trek. Star Trek. Now, last year I got to tell Jonathan Frakes that I actually named my child Riker. I can't say the same that I named his child Saru. Yeah, but I've had people name their dog Saru.

So that's the category. That's a good dog name. I get the pet names. Yeah. You know what's happened around my house is we do the Saru walk.

Of course you do. And I think it's when we're leaving a room, like, you know what, we just outsmarted somebody. We did something that just, yeah, but we feel like it's a sign of. It's a very supermodel. I got it.

I got I'm all that kind of a walk. So wait a minute. So Saru is based his walk is based off of a supermodel. Well, I mean, it was the shoes. My hoof boots changed my posture.

So I kind of walk like I was standing with the hips forward kind of like, okay. Mind blowing the physical roles that you played. I'm just. Thank you. There's no words.

Kind of you. Thank you so much. But we are here for healing today. And I really want to to talk to you about our organization, Promise to Live. And we're out there getting messages of hope to people who might be struggling.

We want them to make the promise to live. So would you be willing to make that promise today? Oh, I promise to live. OK, so you get a story I can tell you to let's hear it. You get a hug.

Oh, I will take my hug. And a real one after we're done here. OK, but I'll tell you what. This is lovely. I'm about 20 years ago.

I was doing a commercial for a car and I was out on the road in central California. And I was not having I was in a kind of a depressed mood for various reasons in my life, which we all go like this throughout our entire life. I'm 65 now. I have the luxury of hindsight. I can look back and say, oh, that was a tough time.

But I got through it. And I've so 20 years ago doing this commercial, I was really depressed. I was looking at the hillside, all the rolling hills around me. I thought, you know what? If I run over that hill and never come back, no one will miss me.

I had that moment. And I know some of us have had that moment before. Some of us act on that moment. And I'm glad I didn't. Had I run over that hill and never come back, I would have missed 20 great years.

I would have missed a daughter, a grandchild, and so many more in my career, so much more career and so much more friends and family and family time. That are all the ups. I would have missed all those peaks. Yes, there are going to be valleys. But when we're on the peaks, we can look back and go, oh, that was a valley.

Well, I'm glad I'm over that. And we will get over it. There is hope. That's beautiful. Amazing message.

And yeah. And when you're in those peaks, like he's talking about, go to promisetolive.org and make that promise to live because it'll get you through those hard times. Yeah, because when you're back in a valley, you remember I had made that promise, right? Doug, this is a beautiful message. We weren't expecting that.

I don't know why, because you were just a beautiful man, seriously. And we are glad you didn't go through with that because you've touched a lot of lives. You seriously have. Like the work you've been in, like you got just a couple of characters behind you, but you've seriously changed lives. Man, this guy completely radiated kindness.

We didn't ask for that story he gave us. He just gave it to us. And that was vulnerable. Just like the characters that he plays, it gave me butterflies when I heard him giving that story. I'm emotional today.

It's crazy. I think in the moment, I was just listening to him and really grateful to be there in his presence and listening to what he had to say, but listening to it back, I'm like, oh my gosh. Incredible. I am glad that he didn't walk over that hill because we would have all been, and it's selfish to say, but we would have all lost something without knowing it really. And this man to me is the reason that this movie won the Oscar, but yet he wasn't nominated for a damn award.

Not one, but there was a lot of people that won awards from this. Best Picture, Guillermo del Toro won, I think something for directing in this. Octavia's picture either won or was nominated. She's a class, triple A top S tier actress out there. She's always going to be top notch.

Sally Hawkins. This movie was a quiet one though. If you remember when it came out to me, it was like a word of mouth. Oh, you got to watch this shape of water. Oh, you got to check this out.

And I love those kinds of movies because then you really get a community to be able to talk about the moral aspects, the ethical aspects, all of these different things. And it's like you said earlier, it's a reflection. So yeah, go ahead though. Tell us what you think about Doug Jones because you hadn't got to say much because I haven't been over here praising his everything. Yeah, we'll just sit here and gush over that beautiful human being who honestly, just I think of that day we were there doing press and we met quite a few people and and I think that his booth even just we were there early so it got busier, but it was not as busy as I would expect.

I think that's because people don't know who he like, they don't recognize him because he plays parts that are completely different than what he looks like. And three hours of makeup for this movie every day. I mean, insane. But yeah, I think he deserves all of that alkalis for his talent, for his abilities, but he's just a beautiful human being. I mean, you can tell in those stories you could get in the in the kind of merch stuff that they have in the back.

You can get a shirt that said Doug hug. I got a Doug hug and I almost bought one. I'm kind of mad that I didn't now, but I was like we did get a Doug hug. He was handing out hugs left and right. He was so generous with his time, so generous and just the sweetest human ever.

So I'm very grateful we got to have that moment with him. Yeah, but you can see all of his characters in him. Let's talk specifics about his performance and shape of water. Like we talked about it. We mentioned the head tilts, the curiosity, the restraint, the first egg sink.

Remember that? Like the way he studies her, like she's a miracle instead of prey. Already tells the audience, oh, yeah, he's not maybe a threat. Maybe he's feeling something. Maybe it's curiosity.

Like I said, you got the scene. And tell the shift in just subtle subtext is what they call it. Yes. I believe. Yes.

Is that the small movements and choices in acting that portray thoughts and portray feelings. And you can see that. And like you said, the way he looked at her. I loved reading about how when they filmed this together, they had to be really vulnerable with each other. They had to be.

I mean, this is a romance. There's a lot of physicality going on with the two characters, Eliza and the amphibian man. So reading about this, they prepared for their takes together by saying that they loved each other. They would say, I love you before the take. I think that's so sweet.

I'm just like, I must be having an emotional day. It's the eclipse season, you guys. I'm just like, I've seen a lot of that. What is this eclipse? Not to get too far off topic, but what is this eclipse we just had or is coming up?

Listen, I cannot pretend like I know all about the astrology because I'm more like a seasonal witch. But I do know that this dark moon that we just had week past is in an eclipse season. And that is one of the most powerful, intense energies going on. I believe, what is it? Neptune, which is emotions and water feelings, is in Aries, which is a fire sign.

Fire and passion and aggressiveness kind of energy is like how I think of it. And I think Saturn is in Aries, I believe. Someone out there knows astrology better than I do. But I do keep up a little bit on these things because I try to live my life in these seasons and cycles. I know I'm not separate from them.

And as well as I tried to just be a human and the emotions caught up with me anyway. So it's been like not sleeping, foggy brain, emotional. So yeah, Freqs are going to have to just forgive me. We've got to power through all of us. We're going to have to power through it.

Guys, we're in this together. We can do this. This, the tank scene, the quiet rage we feel when he's tortured. You feel the injustice in his posture before you see it in his face. And that's once again, the performance of Doug Jones.

You know what actors talk about finding the character? I think Doug builds these characters from the inside out. I don't know. I think he does it himself. And it's like you said earlier, we don't necessarily know that it's him most of the time because he's always in a suit.

So that's crazy that he's this. There's other people like that. Andy Sardakis, I think is his name. The guy that does all the mocap stuff for Lord of the Rings. He did Gollum.

He does all of King Kong's. Another one that doesn't get as much love as he should. I know. I hope they're like paid extra or something for all the hours they spend in the makeup. I don't know how things work in Hollywood, but I would just like to think that they deserve something for compensation for all that time in the chair.

Have to. That's hard work. They'd have to because he's putting in six to eight hours before shooting to get prosthetics and makeup and whatever else. You got to have some patience for that. Yeah.

Yeah. And the character development, I read there were 40 page backstories for each character in this movie. So there's a lot of research, a lot of work being done. And I think it comes through. I mean, I think you can tell Eliza has this whole backstory about being an orphan and where she came from, even her last name, meaning exposed in Italian.

Yeah. Because that's what they gave orphans in the orphanage. So there's all this context and layers to their characters. Which is great storytelling. And that's Guillermo del Toro doing his thing.

And this is one of those movies, though, that he made that wasn't really terrifying, like a pan's labyrinth, but still had some of those moments where you're like questioning things. And I love that because he always gives us that we should do Frankenstein. We should make sure we get Frankenstein in. Pretty soon. It's on my list, guys.

Don't you worry. Queen of the schedule right here has got that one coming up. I love the Queen of the schedule. If you guys out there want to hear us talk about something that we haven't, hit us up. DM us.

Talk to Coco. Forget about the schedule. Let us know. What's your final thoughts on the shape of water and really our focus on Doug Jones here. I need to take a second to talk about the decaying fingers of Strickland.

Oh, yes. This character. My gosh. Let's see. Michael Shannon, who plays Strickland in this.

I mean, kind of the evil, bad guy to the amphibian man's good guy. I mean, there's got to be that push and pull going on there because he's supposed to be the creature. He's supposed to be the quote unquote monster. But I always come back to the hunchback of Notre Dame when they're singing, who is the monster and who is the man? Because it reveals.

Sorry about my singing, guys. Sorry. But it reveals that who we thought was the monster because they look different or they are misunderstood or whatever the reason, the hunchback in the back of Notre Dame. But who really actually is the monster? The guy who tries to get himself a teal Cadillac and go home to his wife and kids and is trying to get promoted and make his quota.

And he's icky, absolute like the way that he treats Eliza like a piece of meat and just everything about that. I keep coming back to the line that he says, what does the Lord look like? When he says to Octavia Spencer's character, Zelda, what does the Lord look like? Because he's trying to say it doesn't look like that creature. We're made in the Lord's image.

That creature was not made in the Lord's image. What does the Lord look like? I think he looks more like me and you will actually more like me. When he's talking to her and I looked at my husband and I said, I mean, if we're talking about Jesus, I think maybe he looks more like Octavia. He was Middle Eastern.

I don't know why people keep thinking he looks more like you. But yeah, that just seething racist bigot misogyny guy from the 60s that he encompasses in this movie and then just full on shooting people at the end. Well, let me throw this little fact factoid at you, but there was some foreshadowing about exactly what you said in the opening sequence during the credits. The narrator is talking and says, and the monster who wanted to destroy it all as Michael Shannon's name pops up on the screen. Interesting.

I didn't catch that. I did catch the monster. It implies that his character, a human man, is the real monster and not the amphibian man. But it happens right there. Foreshadowing in the opening credits of the movie.

Go check it out again. That's worth watching again for. Go watch the opening credits. All right. And for every man out there watching this movie as a what do I do to become a better man?

Look towards the amphibian man as your guide in how to treat your lady or partner and how to be a considerate person in the world. Yeah, the amphibian man showed us you don't have to be loud. You just got to be present. You don't have to dominate the room to change it. Sometimes you just have to move differently, literally.

Maybe that's the lesson from shape of water. Learn how to move different. Learn how to learn how to flow flow. That was the word I was looking at like water. See, our frequencies are like this.

And every once in a while they diverge or something. And we get that that secrecy. How about that? Yeah, I like that. But that water wash right over you.

Okay. Okay. Too much water now. We're we're getting into. But no feelings.

We're having all the feelings. Got tears flowing on today's show with the Doug Jones interview. But yeah, I guarantee you won't be the only one that hears that Coco. It does that because that's a beautiful story. So this is Parallel Frequencies.

This is Parallel Frequencies with Just Blane and Coco. We're going to have more interviews for you too. And don't forget tomorrow. Night of the Seven Kingdoms breakdown. If you haven't caught up.

It's not that long. Freqs. You can watch it like two and a half hours and be done. Check it out. We're going to talk about that tomorrow right here on Parallel Frequencies.

We'll see you on the other side.